Adaptation

Film review 

Orson Welles' 1962 film adaptation of Frank Kafka's novel The Trial takes on the difficult task of transferring the eerie novel fragment to screen. The film succeeds in creating an oppressive mood. The main character, K. moves around in rooms that are mostly confusingly large and strangely  decorated. 

On the one hand, the filming locations appear almost makeshift and somewhat run-down, but on the other hand, there are also places that seem almost sterile. The settings are able to express the main character’s forlornness in images. The shots are always chosen so that we follow K.'s perspective and never seem to gain a complete overview of the scene. This confusion is supported by piles of files, as seen in Huld's house (in the film, his name is "Hastler") and in the court. These large masses of documents stress that the main character is lost in the bureaucratic, anonymous apparatus of the court. 

The desolation and size of the rooms in the film create a threatening atmosphere in which the individuals are almost submerged and seem only like props in a large structure. This is succinctl...